Tata Steel 2013 Round 12 - Carlsen Wraps It Up

The 2013 Tata Steel Chess tournament is taking place from 12-27 January in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands.

This famous annual tournament has three separate single round-robin competitions, the A, B, and C Groups, each featuring 14 players.

The strongest tournament is the A Group and this year features 6 out of the top 10 ranked players; world champion Vishy Anand, world #1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Lev Aronian, rising star Fabiano Caruana, world #6 Sergey Karjakin, and US champion Hikaru Nakamura.

.Round 12 - Official website report

Magnus Carlsen, the world number one from Norway, has won the 75th Tata Steel Chess Tournament with one round to spare. He took care of Hikaru Nakamura in spectacular fashion, and in short order. Nakamura resigned when he was unable to defend against the destructive 32.f7.

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As Levon Aronian was easily held to a draw by Anish Giri, Carlsen increased his lead to a point-and-a-half and will face Giri tomorrow in an effort to break Garry Kasparov's record of 10/13, set in 1999.

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Viswanathan Anand joined Levon Aronian in second place after defeating Erwin l'Ami. Even though the Dutchman got a better endgame with black out of the opening, the World Champion showed his true mettle this time, and outplayed his opponent gradually.

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In the battle for Best Dutchman of the tournament, Loek van Wely again took the lead recovering from a loss in the previous round, as he had done already twice before in this tournament. His opponent Fabiano Caruana had his back against the wall all afternoon, and eventually lost a race for checkmate.

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Ivan Sokolov's trouble is only increasing, and for the remaining Dutchman the end of the tournament can't come too soon. In a better position against Hou Yifan, he self-pinned his knight only to find out that keeping the piece out of harm's way cost him a pawn and the position.

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The games Harikrishna-Wang Hao and Leko-Karjakin ended in a draw from uneventful endgames.

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Group A Standings After 12 Rounds

1

Carlsen, Magnus

NOR

2861

9½

2

Anand, Viswanathan

IND

2772

8

3

Aronian, Levon

ARM

2802

8

4

Leko, Peter

HUN

2735

7

5

Karjakin, Sergey

RUS

2780

7

6

Nakamura, Hikaru

USA

2769

6½

7

Harikrishna, Pentala

IND

2698

6

8

Van Wely, Loek

NED

2679

6

9

Giri, Anish

NED

2720

5½

10

Wang, Hao

CHN

2752

5

11

Hou, Yifan

CHN

2603

5

12

Caruana, Fabiano

ITA

2781

4½

13

L'Ami, Erwin

NED

2627

3½

14

Sokolov, Ivan

NED

2663

2½

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Whereas the fight for first in the A-Group proved to be a bit anti-climatic, the heat is on in Group B. Arkadij Naiditsch and Sergey Movsesian could only draw their games and Richard Rapport took advantage of this by beating Jan Timman, thus joining them in the lead with 8 out of 12. The three leaders will all face players from the bottom of the standings tomorrow.

Richard Rapport joined the leaders in Group B

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Group B Round 12 Results

Van Kampen, Robin

0-1

Nikolic, Predrag

Rapport, Richard

1-0

Timman, Jan H

Edouard, Romain

½-½

Naiditsch, Arkadij

Ernst, Sipke

½-½

Ipatov, Alexander

Movsesian, Sergei

½-½

Grandelius, Nils

Tiviakov, Sergei

½-½

Smeets, Jan

Turov, Maxim

1-0

Dubov, Daniil

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GroupB Standings After 12 Rounds

1

Naiditsch, Arkadij

GER

2708

8

2

Movsesian, Sergei

ARM

2688

8

3

Rapport, Richard

HUN

2621

8

4

Smeets, Jan

NED

2615

7½

5

Dubov, Daniil

RUS

2600

7

6

Edouard, Romain

FRA

2686

6½

7

Timman, Jan H

NED

2566

6½

8

Tiviakov, Sergei

NED

2655

6

9

Turov, Maxim

RUS

2630

6

10

Van Kampen, Robin

NED

2581

5

11

Nikolic, Predrag

BIH

2619

4½

12

Grandelius, Nils

SWE

2572

4

13

Ipatov, Alexander

TUR

2587

3½

14

Ernst, Sipke

NED

2556

3½

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Sabino Brunello and Fernando Peralta again won their game in Group C and are now in first place with 10(!) points out of 12 games. In round 13 Brunello has the easier pairing, playing with black versus Miguoel Admiraal, while Peralta will face 2nd seed Alexander Kovchan, also with black.